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February Editors Desk The bad; the worse, and the awful. Not much can be said about the Super Bowl's halftime show that hasn't already been said, except to look deeper and say, "How bad was it?" Apparently really bad if you're a posturing government suit. FCC Chairman Michael Powell melodramatically called the Janet Jackson incident a "new low for prime-time television" (What? Did he forget about Temptation Island 2 already?) and noted that 90 million viewers witnessed the multi-second flesh display - and that 200,000 of those had since contacted the FCC to complain. That's right folks, less than one-fourth of 1% of the people who saw Janet Jackson spring a fun bag were actually distressed enough to phone or e-mail the FCC and spark a tax-dollar-wasting campaign to investigate the incident. The FCC is considering raising indecency fines 10-fold to $275,000, and everyone who has ever had anything to do with CBS, MTV, or the NFL has apologized to the Feds, the press, and anyone who will listen for their horrible lack of responsibility and regrettable misjudgment regarding the February 1st events. But here's something: What if it was truly an accident? Sure, sure, I thought it was a setup the minute I saw it too - in fact, not really paying much attention to the screen, I thought it was a Dirk Diggler-esque prosthesis… but what if? A post appeared last week on one of the Yahoo groups I monitor from a guy who claimed to have a brother-in-law in management at MTV networks - not a real higher-up with any skin in the game, but someone with enough info to be in the know. According to a pasted transcript of an IM conversation with this guy, the thinking among mid-level managers at the station that used to play videos is that it really was a blooper. Yes, Justin was scripted to rip off the front of Jackson's bodice - revealing some sort of interesting middleware - but a full glass of creamy milk chocolate was not in the repertoire at all. So what if? I know that at least one or two women read this column each month, so someone chime in and tell me what the odds are that a bra-like clothing item could malfunction - like, for instance, when a nervous guy is groping at it in front of a worldwide audience. Certainly at least one girl reading this column has lost a bikini top in some killer surf; would that be worth a $27,500 fine? Or $275,000? That FCC investigation would be much better focused if it explored why the halftime show music sucked so bad - a fact Arriviste contributors Carl Kozlowski and Tim Joyce argue vehemently in their column this month. But as bad as the Janet Jackson fiasco is, other Super Bowl-related news - that barely registered on the national radar - is much worse. Take the stories of James Grabowski and Stanley Filoma, for example. Well, you won't take Grabowski's story very far; he's dead. He was killed by the impact of Filoma's SUV when Filoma tried to drive through a crowd of boisterous Patriots fans near Northeastern University in Boston several hours after Vinatieri's game-winning kick. Grabowski's death, at 21, is certainly the most tragic result of the post-game depravity, but the lot Filoma drew in life isn't much better. This 24-year-old Haitian immigrant was charged with vehicular homicide while operating under the influence after he blew a .09 in the breathalyzer when he was picked up by the cops. (And to think, just a few years ago .10 - not .08 - was the legal limit in Massachusetts. Hell, some weekends I've gone out on a Friday and was still blowing .09 the following Tuesday. That just ain't that drunk, people.) But talk about some bad voodoo… this quiet, church-choir-singing mailroom clerk left a Super Bowl party much like Grabowski did, but when he got in his truck to go home he found the road blocked by a horde of Pats-frenzied punks. When he tried to back out the opposite end of the narrow street he was blocked by an overturned car. When he tried to go forward the crowd pelted his vehicle with debris. What made him panic? Maybe it was the handful of prior driving convictions combined with the police presence and the knowledge that he had booze on his breath. Maybe he feared that the crowd - overturning cars and lighting things on fire - was coming for him next. No matter the reason, he stepped on the gas, wiped out a handful revelers, killed Grabowski, and wound up waiting on bail the next day. And if that wasn't enough bad Haitian karma, guess what Grabowski's father does for a living? You got it: Massachusetts State Cop. What are the odds Filoma gets a judge that considers the overturned car, the bonfires in the streets, and the debris-hurling crowd when he goes up for sentencing? About the same odds that you're one of the people who phoned the FCC to vent your rage at Janet's breast. Oh, if only John Fox
hadn't gone for two… awful. |
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